The determination of indium and thallium in silicate rocks by a combined solvent extraction and spectrochemical technique

A technique has been developed for the determination of In and Tl at very low concentrations in silicate rocks. The iodo-complexes of these elements are extracted from the rock silicate into ethyl cther and the ethereal residues are analysed spectrochemically. The optimum working conditions were established by a study of the variation of percentage extraction as a function of hydrogen iodide normality ; the reproducibility of the spectrochemical procedure was investigated. In and Tl were determined in eight silicate rocks including standard granite G-I and standard diabase W-I. Good agreement was obtained with results of other workers for these two rocks and with the author's previous results. The evidence for a In/Mn coherence in silicate rocks is sufficiently strong to warrant further investigations.